Greg Aires On Fansubbing


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ssjseifer

-chi
Kouhai
You know, I just want to say that I've enjoyed this place a great deal and I love being able to come here and download anime that hasn't been released here in America yet. However, I would like to say that I will no longer be visiting for that purpose any longer out of respect for both Greg Aires and the former great company of Geneon/Pioneer.

Just yesterday at Nekocon, Greg Aires made a convincing argument against the making of fansubs. He spoke from the heart and said that while at one time, it served a great purpose both in getting people into anime and sharing much of Japanese culture with the world, it now serves to provide free versions of the anime companies here would normally be translating and hiring people to redub in other countries. He even attributes the downfall of Geneon/Pioneer last month to this as well.

I know full well that Fansub.tv removes licensed anime as soon as it is brought to their attention, such as Geneon's licensing of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha last month which will be removing it from here shortly. Since it was Geneon, I'm really disappointed as to who will be able to pick it up now and I'll have to wait to own it. I do hope someone picks it up so I can get my copy cause I did enjoy it.

Money has been tight with all the companies recently. For example, they had wanted to have Crispin Freeman (you name the anime, he's done it) to reprise his role of Albedo in the Xenosaga series, but the money wasn't there and they had to rely on local talent all around, a true shame to swap voice actors out mid-series. (I'm not against fresh talent, just swapping mid-series)

Sorry, I digress. What I wanted to say though, is that I believe that each of you who comes to read this may want to just think a little about what Mr. Aires said at Nekocon and perhaps come up with some thoughts of your own on what we all do from day to day to protect the shows we love and the companies that bring them to us. Without Geneon/Pioneer, we only have a handful left such as ADV, Funimation, Mediablasters, and one of my personal favorites AnimeWorks.

Anyhow, just think about it a little and post your thoughts maybe. I'd like to here some other opinions on what you all think.
 
I've had similar debates with other fans before after Geneon pulled out the market, and I still think people are overreacting. Particularly, if fansubs die, the entire industry (over seas from Japan, particularly in English speaking countries) will die shortly there after.

You see, fansubs do not only get people into anime, but they give us the chance to find out what we like before we buy it. So in this sense, it's sort of like reading a book at the library but never going out to own it yourself if it wasn't that great a book. Using the same analogy, if the book was really great and you wanted to re-read it over a bunch of times and have it close to you so you could pick it up anytime, then you'd go out and buy it. Or some people would still love the book to death, but never buy it because they could read it anytime they wanted for free.

Trouble is, not all anime are licensed, so some anime are only viewable view fansubs, and asking fans to ignore a good portion of anime that don't get licensed I believe is probably the most ridiculous thing you could ask an avid anime fan to do.

On top of that, anime is already a niche market, and I guarantee you this, if fansubs were not here, DVD sales would be all but worthless. We watch the anime before, so we become fans of it beforehand and thus when/if the anime gets licensed and DVDs come over here, then we choose to buy them or not buy them. I mean, DVDs are expensive, and I bet you're not about to fork over $100+ to see a full series if you've never heard or seen it before.

So for Aires to say that "fansubs at one time served a great purpose, but now that purpose doesn't matter" just shows me that he does not truly realize how important fansubs are for the anime community overseas. If this ultimately means that there will be fewer licensing companies around, then chances are that means less anime will get licensed, and therefore they'll be able to put more money into the anime they do license, rather than the half-assed work they've been trying to shove down anime fans' throats since the first licensing company was christened. Such as (but not limited to) poor voice acting, and the poor content available on the DVDs. In contrast, the Japanese voice actors really genuinely do good jobs, and the DVDs are often filled with special stuff.

And hell, if Geneon's downfall really does mean that eventually all licensing companies will go under, then it's a flaw in the design. Licensing companies cannot live without fansubs, but fansubs can live without them. They just haven't realized this yet, or just chose to ignore it all this time.
 
This belongs more in the Thoughtful Section. Thread Moved.
 
That's a rather interesting statement. I don't really think fansubs are what is causing the downfall of the licensing companies. Like Juhachi said, as a fan I simply do not have the money to buy DVDs for multiple series and restrict it only to series I truly love. And I don't understand why every single anime needs to be dubbed. Clearly, if there is a 'problem' with fansubbing that shows many fans like subtitles. I can understand subbing mainstream anime that will make it to TV, but they could cut costs and make it cheaper for fans by releasing subtitled-only DVDs.

For example, at AN07 I got the entire series of Loveless for $30, and it's regular price was $45 for the whole set. I was willing to pay $45 for the series, which had no dub and no special production features. Especially when you consider, it cost me $45 for one DVD of DNAngel, which included 4 episodes and I hated the anime and wish I had never wasted my money on it.

And I don't believe fansubs are killing the anime industry. I mean, I read a lot of scanlated manga and I don't think that hurts the manga industry. I just found out one of my favourite scanlated manga was licensed, and the company won't be able to release the English edition fast enough! I think what the companies need to do is find out what exactly English fans want from the DVDs. If you have a niche show, don't dub it if the fans all tell you they only want the subtitles. Make good use of the show's art when producing the DVD covers, so that it's attractive to fans. And maybe, stop licensing so many anime until you know what genres and what features of releases will make you the most money.

There is something the DVD industry, IMO is doing wrong. I mean, I know exactly when all my favourite manga have new volumes coming out, and I go and buy them as soon as I can. I don't mind paying up to $18 for one DMP one, either. Yet I know nothing about the DVD releases, and I own very few series because of the costs. That's not to say I don't debate over buying anime boxsets, but my policy is don't buy before you have read/watched it.

Note: all prices in Canadian dollars
 
Fansubs are killing off the anime industry? I disagree. Fansubs have been around for as long as I can remember... I remember back when I was in my teens in the mid-90s when the Internet wasn't as big as it is and all fansubs were basically bootleg video casette tapes. The general purpose as to why they were done is as "practice" if a certain anime will become a hit or not ergo being viable to the market. Most people would even insinuate that it was the production companies would do this themselves just to see if something will be a hit.

I don't really see the problem with fansubs... I actually enjoy them more than some dubbed work once they get licensed. The subbers do excellent work on subs... the licensed stuff anime usually do a half-ass job at it that they try to Americanize it as much as possible - which, I think, is not really appreciated that much by most of the fans. For one thing, if I really, really, really liked the series when I watched it on fansubs, I would fork out money to get the real stuff. I think that if they are concerned about the financial impact, they should really reconsider the anime that they are picking up (but then again, I would prefer them finishing the season first
laugh.gif
).

Also, I have a problem with the anime that they released. Most of them are the "hits". And just how would they know they were hits??? Well, the public (meaning their niche market)'s clamor for it. But the thing is... not everyone enjoy the mainstream anime. I myself are really into some of the dark horse anime that wouldn't have a chance to be licensed like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Moyashimon (maybe). I mean, yeah, I enjoyed the Ouran High School Host And Code Geass. But in this niche lies a smaller niche of non-mainstream anime that people enjoy.

As for the mangas, I personally prefer reading them like a normal book/manga rather than scanlations, but diehard fans really prefer to them beforehand.

Besides, don't they already have their army of lawyers sending notices to sub groups to remove will-be licensed stuff?
 
Thats always been my biggest problem when buying anime: cost. It is not worth it to me to pay $80 + for a 13 episode series; and I will DEFINITELY not buy said series for said cost if I haven't heard a LOT good things about it or have already seen fansubs of it.
I'm the kind of anime watcher who downloads and deletes right after watching; so it's not like I rewatch series whenever I want. If there's a series that is exceptionally good, I'll buy it (especially if the price is actually reasonable).

I basically agree with everything that Juhachi and Chiisai said, and think that the claim Aires made was out of ignorance of the truth. Anime overseas would not survive if not for fansubs. Hell, I would bet that most series that come overseas do so simply BECAUSE so many fansubs are made, which shows it would be popular over here so they port it.

And that aside, the community of fansubbed-anime watchers is actually pretty small as compared to those who watch anime without even knowing of the existence of fansubs - or at least thats what I've found amongst those I know here.
 
QUOTE Like Juhachi said, as a fan I simply do not have the money to buy DVDs for multiple series and restrict it only to series I truly love.

The quite obvious answer is : if you don't really like the other animes, why do you watch them? And what prevent you from being very demanding, therefore buying very few animes while watching a lot of them?

Should we pay only for the few most successful animes? The outcome would be obvious: A disappearance of more modest animes.
It would be fine, except for the fact that successful animes are not always the best animes.

In the end, it's like saying "Trust the customer". I'm not convinced it's workable.
There's still a problem of lack of fairplay in a part of the community.
Some teams are still doing scantrads of the newest chapter of Bleach or Naruto... Why? Certainly not to promote these mangas, they are already among the most successful. Because they are just average mangas which don't deserve to be bought? No, if we can trust the fervor of the readers of those scantrads.
So why? Because it's simpler (and by simpler, I mean less expensive) to download them on the Net?


QUOTE
Fansubs are killing off the anime industry? I disagree. Fansubs have been around for as long as I can remember... I remember back when I was in my teens in the mid-90s when the Internet wasn't as big as it is and all fansubs were basically bootleg video casette tapes.


In those blessed days, fansubbing was a marginal, difficult activity.
Now, thanks to broadband access to the Internet, an 6-year old kid can download animes all the day by clicking on a link.
It changes the situation a bit, doesn't it?

It's true that fansub give us a better knowledge of the anime actuality. But would this knowledge be impossible without?
Of course not. Even without fansub, we would do like we have always done for everything else (books, foreign series, music...): we would read some reviews, either on paper or on the net, look for critics' opinions, watch some trailers online and maybe even the few TV shows on animes. Quite easy, really.

Does it really hurt the anime industry in the western world? I can't say. But I remark the lack of figures or facts about this problem.
People have convictions, most of the time sensible convictions, but no numbers, nos stats, nothing on the net income of american (or not-american) companies. So the debate is built on sand, since we simply confront our convictions (and I'm no better than other posters here).

Speaking of convictions, mine is that while fansubbing can has some beneficial effects on the industry, the complete lack of rules makes it a problem more than a solution.
Maybe some reflections on the distribution of translated animes/manga (both problems have a common basis) would be helpful. I imagine that besides the perfectly(?) translated manga on paper / anime on DVD, we could have a fast-translation available on the web with a system a la itunes, where you could download the episode/chapter of the week for a lesser price.
 
QUOTE (Dalriada @ Nov 04 2007, 12:42 PM) Some teams are still doing scantrads of the newest chapter of Bleach or Naruto... Why? Certainly not to promote these mangas, they are already among the most successful. Because they are just average mangas which don't deserve to be bought? No, if we can trust the fervor of the readers of those scantrads.
So why? Because it's simpler (and by simpler, I mean less expensive) to download them on the Net?
Not for any of those reasons. Groups still scanlate Bleach/Naruto because the manga that's coming out in Japan won't be officially published in English for month and months, and I don't have to tell you how impatient avid fans of a series can be. Same thing with the Bleach/Naruto anime. If you watched either one, or both, would you honestly want to wait well over a year for it to come to your country if you could just watch it right now?

Fansubs are not only convenient, they keep up with the demand. The fact is, licensing companies, no matter what, release stuff after it's been out for a long time, and they release them slowly (as in one DVD or manga volume every few months). Now, this may work after the series is completely released in English or whatever, but the waiting part of it while the series is still ongoing does not go over well with anyone. People are just naturally impatient, and you can't fix that no matter what.
 
QUOTE (Juhachi @ Nov 04 2007, 07:57 PM) Not for any of those reasons. Groups still scanlate Bleach/Naruto because the manga that's coming out in Japan won't be officially published in English for month and months, and I don't have to tell you how impatient avid fans of a series can be. Same thing with the Bleach/Naruto anime. If you watched either one, or both, would you honestly want to wait well over a year for it to come to your country if you could just watch it right now?

Fansubs are not only convenient, they keep up with the demand. The fact is, licensing companies, no matter what, release stuff after it's been out for a long time, and they release them slowly (as in one DVD or manga volume every few months). Now, this may work after the series is completely released in English or whatever, but the waiting part of it while the series is still ongoing does not go over well with anyone. People are just naturally impatient, and you can't fix that no matter what.

Yeah and what takes a year to reach America, takes Europe 3-4 years. Without fansubs most of us on this side of the earth would hardly see any anime at all. Yeah there is some to get and some could argue "Well buy it from American sites." I could buy them from american sites but the cost of shipment would almost amount to the cost of the anime i purchased. Now to me that doesn't sound fair at all. I mean should we have to quite watching anime just because companies in the U.S try to make more money. IMO hell no, why should we wait 5 years for releases of pardon me "shitty" american dubs, when so much is released every new season.

I thank all those subbers out there that take their own time to make anime accesible to everyone in the world and not selected parts of the world. One can't just look in a specific area and decide someting that would impact the whole world at least i don't think so.

Anyway that's what i had to say about the matter.
 
From what I know, fansubs only make up a very small portion of what hurts licensing companies. The bigger portion, as some users have mentioned already, is due to the pricing of the dvds. Not everyone has that kind of money to spend on an anime dvd. $20-$50 and sometimes $70 (rare though) is ridiculously expensive especially for the target audiences. Most licensed anime targets younger viewers and parents, as a result, are not willing to pay that kind of money when it can be spent elsewhere for a much more worthwhile purpose. However, even though some of the audience already make their own money, some people can't make that much money to have it as a "necessity," instead it's more of a luxury item.

Fansubs started the spread of anime around the world and really does not harm anyone or any company until it becomes licensed in a certain region. The continuation of fansubs then does become a problem because for those who are "wealthy" and can afford the dvds, the companies begin to lose those customer's money from their profit, but again, the distribution of fansubs of licensed anime only make a small almost insignificant loss in a companies profit.
 
QUOTE
Fansubs are not only convenient, they keep up with the demand.

Well, it doesn't make it morally or legally acceptable.
I won't answer the obvious "So are drug dealers", but the fact that something is convenient doesn't make it right.

For the same reasons, is the role of the customer to decide the right price for a product?
If I go to the nearest tobaccoshop, think that 5€ is too much for a box of cigarettes, then steal it, I will have some problems with the authorities. Is it different just because it's on the Internet? I may not be stealing an object, but I'm still taking something (20 minutes of entertainment) without payment


QUOTE
Yeah and what takes a year to reach America, takes Europe 3-4 years.

I disagree more or less. With some titles, France keeps up with the USA (at least if I believe the site of Viz Media, 27 mangas are available in america and 32 in France. And 40 in Japan). Naruto may be a special case thanks to its success, but the variety of mangas or animes is quite important.

It's just a question of market, the more it's sold, the more it will be available.
 
im just going to go over the major points because i am sleepy today;

1) DvDs cost too much, especially when i don't like the english voice actors/dubbing accuracy, let alone sub accuracy, which is becoming more and more apparent as I learn more japanese (whihc remind me, i need to start thinking about my final project. plus, the large bulk come out very late (Ghost Hunt, Fall 2008?), (Haruhi, finished it the night i got back from AX06, was the "big thing" for AX07 with the the first DVD release)

2) a very small number of anime get licensed. so i never would have been able to watch anime like Inukami, REC, likely most of Rozen Maiden (only some of it has been licensed), Kyou_no_Go_no_Ni, etc.
 
QUOTE (Dalriada @ Nov 04 2007, 03:42 PM)The quite obvious answer is : if you don't really like the other animes, why do you watch them? And what prevent you from being very demanding, therefore buying very few animes while watching a lot of them?
It's not that I don't like the other animes, I just don't like them as much. Apply this to regular American television. You flip on the television and watch a ton of shows every week. But say ... you only really truly love Heroes enough to spend money on the DVD boxset. Because that is all you can afford with your income. But that doesn't mean you don't like House/Grey's/OC/whatever, it's just that, as Kit said, the DVDs are a luxury item that you spend your extra cash on.

If the DVDs are cheaper, they'll become more accessible to fans. I mean, a lot of anime fans fall into the highschool/college student bracket. As much as I'd love to buy anime, unfortunately I owe my university a hell of a lot of money. I buy what I can, but I can only work so many hours a week to pay for a hobby. The companies need to consider who their audience is. Like I said above - why are they dubbing every anime? Unless they've got the next big hit in their hands, they should cut the costs and just do a nice simple subbed release of the niche titles.

And the fact remains that US stores still stock the most stuff. For the rest of us, we're paying higher prices and having to really search out some titles. No, that's not the company's fault, and no, it doesn't make fansubs more legal, but it's a strong factor as to why fansubs persist.
 
QUOTE (Dalriada @ Nov 04 2007, 11:46 PM)
It's just a question of market, the more it's sold, the more it will be available.
I can agree with that but it's like the rest of the DvD sales around the world. The bulk of sales represents the families that can afford about 1 maybe 2 movies a month but if u spend that much on DVD then your not eating right.

What i mean to say as a student u can't possibly excpect me to lounge out about 40-50 euros every month so that i can feel at ease toward the companies that license anime. Yeah it's not morally correct but is licensing it and putting those prices right when a DvD doesn't cost a lot to make? One can only live by the rescources one has and internet is one of mine wether it's right or wrong doesn't bother me so much now, maybe when i finish Uni i might consider buying more anime but will still have to use fansubs because of the sheeer number that is released licensing companies will never keep up and prolly nither will my wallet
 
QUOTE (Dalriada @ Nov 04 2007, 11:46 PM)QUOTE
Yeah and what takes a year to reach America, takes Europe 3-4 years.

I disagree more or less. With some titles, France keeps up with the USA (at least if I believe the site of Viz Media, 27 mangas are available in america and 32 in France. And 40 in Japan). Naruto may be a special case thanks to its success, but the variety of mangas or animes is quite important.

It's just a question of market, the more it's sold, the more it will be available.
You guys think it's that bad where you live??? I live in the Philippines, where anime is a little more than niche. People may not be into anime but they would know what they are. Japan is a two-hour freaking flight away and you know what they are showing on the local anime cable channel in their "line-up of new anime"??? Saiunkoku Monogatari... School Rumble Season 1 (about two months ago)... Le Chavalier D'eon... and they just wrapped up the second season of Honey and Clover.

I say... in order for them to reduce cost, remove the dubs! Less labor, less problems. Make the subs better and more accurate and as informative as the fansubs that are being released. Seriously, the fansubs are more enjoyable to watch and read rather than the standard boring stuff licensed subs show. Plus, most fans do not really enjoy dubs anyway - which is generally their target market. That way, they can sell their DVDs at less cost and fans can get attracted to them.
 
QUOTE (Vicepuma @ Nov 05 2007, 03:48 AM) I can agree with that but it's like the rest of the DvD sales around the world. The bulk of sales represents the families that can afford about 1 maybe 2 movies a month but if u spend that much on DVD then your not eating right.

What i mean to say as a student u can't possibly excpect me to lounge out about 40-50 euros every month so that i can feel at ease toward the companies that license anime. Yeah it's not morally correct but is licensing it and putting those prices right when a DvD doesn't cost a lot to make? One can only live by the rescources one has and internet is one of mine wether it's right or wrong doesn't bother me so much now, maybe when i finish Uni i might consider buying more anime but will still have to use fansubs because of the sheeer number that is released licensing companies will never keep up and prolly nither will my wallet
I could not agree more. The huge prices they charge for anime is the primary reason for the downfall of Geneon. That and poor management. It costs about 15 cents to get a blank dvd in bulk. Where is the justification for the other 30 to 50 US dollars it costs to purchase that same 15 cent DvD. The author recieves his cut. The actors need to be paid. The cost of manufacture, which with current day tech is very little, really. Advertisement. After all this, the company wants to make maximum profit per sale. Here is where fansubbing helps. Free advertisement.

Here is where poor management steps in. You purchase a license for a piss poor anime and try to market it and loose out big time. Geneon was pretty much grabbing anything that was coming out that someone didn't snatch up quickly. Some of the anime they got their hands on did very well. A lot of them were not worth buying though. There is also the question of demographics. Just because it's doing well in Asia does not mean it will appeal in North America or Europe. Here is where fansubbing helps. You find out what percent market base you are gonna have for a particular anime. You can double up here with advertisement. Have the fansubbing groups put marketting banners on their sites.

There is another rising factor in all this too. The fact that anime is notoriously ecchi, by nature. You have large groups of people boycotting them because there are panty shots or very scantily clad females all over them. Personally, it doesn't bother me in the least bit, so long as the story line is compelling and it is done tastefully. Nothing really can be done here. Part of the majority of anime fans appeal to anime is the ecchi/hentai content. I mean, sex sells, even if the stick-up-their-butt people don't want to see it.
 
As others are saying, it's mainly the costs of anime that are keeping me from buying any of it. The only DVD that I bought with actual money was the Ghost in the Shell Movie. The other anime DVDs I have were either christmas gifts (my FMA dvds) or bought with a gift card I got for christmas (Elfen Lied and FMA movie). I just don't have the extra funds to buy DVDs when I can just download the fansubs for free. Especially now that I'm a college student and my bank account is already running bear paying for necessities such as food. If I didn't have fansubs the only anime I would ever get to watch are the dubs on [adult swim]. If they were to lower a single volume of a series (3-5 episodes) to about $15 then I would reconsider buying more, but as it stands now I'm not gonna pay $25-$50 for only a couple episodes. It's outrageous.

Also on note about the downfall of Geneon, ssjseifer said "He [Greg Aires] even attributes the downfall of Geneon/Pioneer last month to this [fansubbing] as well." I think another major factor to the downfall of Geneon USA was the sudden drop of agreement with ADV. On Sept 11, ANN reported on the layoffs Geneon USA was doing to prepare for the deal with ADV.
QUOTE According to a recent press release, Geneon USA had 39 employees; by the end of this week, Geneon USA will have laid off more than 20% of its staff.
Sure fansubs might have hurt the company a bit financially (can't say for certain unless I can see some actual numbers of sales/profit by Geneon though), but I think this played a much larger factor.
 
Whether or not fansubbing hurts these companies financially is not the case i think. The problem is it is illegal as long as the licensed anime is fansubbed or sold. [It is right?]

And let me ask this, how does licensing actually work? For example, if Geneon acquires the license to release an anime in North America, fansubbers there would have to stop right? But what if i'm, for example, in Europe?
 
What I'm actually wondering about is that how does the licensing thing really work? I'm assuming that these anime/manga works are copyrighted right? And being copyrighted, they should have the protection of some treaty I can't remember what should disallow distribution, sale or whatever with the permission of the owner.

I'm not against fansubs. Love them! But If the whole licensing thing is the only thing that's defining if this site (for example) can post the anime or not, what's the use of copyrights?
 
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